Day Seven - Polish for Chancer

Posted 2/4/2008 8:49:09 PM

Today was spent polishing command work with the dogs. We practiced a "moving sit" and "a moving down". These are basic obedience commands but we're getting our dogs to respond to them consistently no matter where you are. This also continues to reinforce my relationship as the "handler" or parent. Chancer has been just amazing in class. I am able to put him in a down on his mat and walk away out of his sight for at least 15 minutes now and he stays in "place".

Iyal helped us practice behavior interruption with Jeremy, the trainer. He's been completely fixated on the game boy at 4 Paws and has made fast friends with the other boys. Getting him away from the game and kids has been a challenge every day. Iyal is afraid he'll lose his turn and has little patience for training. But once he is "present" with us, he's doing well. Chancer definately knows that Iyal is "his".

What a joy to watch this relationship unfold...and it's only been 7 days!

Often, when Iyal is very hyperactive I will offer to "squish him" on our sofa. I lie on top of Iyal and let my body weight put deep pressure on him to help lower his arousal system. I learned how to train Chancer to do this. We have to do all new commands in small increments to allow the dog to adjust and process these new ones. The interesting thing about doing the deep pressure the way Iyal is accustomed, is that it's on the sofa. Chancer has been trained to stay off furniture so he was a little confused about getting up on the sofa to begin with!